This invention relates to an image forming method using a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material and an apparatus therefore, further relates in detail to a suitable digital image forming method and an apparatus therefore according to a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material by a simple processing.
At present, a high quality color image can be easily obtained in accordance with the increasingly progressed silver halide photographic light-sensitive material. For instance, an object is photographed by a color negative film and a color print is obtained by optically printing image information recorded on the developed color negative film to a color photographic paper, such process is usually called as a conventional color photography. The process is highly developed so that anyone can enjoy the color photography according to the spreading of a color-lab as a large scale centralizing point for mass-producing of color print with a high efficiency or a large and simple printer-processor installed in a store so called mini-lab.
The color reproduction by a subtractive color system is utilized as a principle in the usual color photography at the present time. In a usual color negative film, light-sensitive materials comprising a plurality of silver halide emulsion layers each having light-sensitivity to blue, green and red region, respectively, as a light-sensitive element are provided on a transparent support. In each of the light-sensitive layers, a color coupler forming yellow, magenta or cyan dye each complimentary color of blue, green or red is contained.
The color negative film imagewise exposed to light by photographing is developed by a color developer containing an aromatic primary amine developing agent. At the development, the light-exposed silver halide grain is developed or reduced by the developing agent and each of the dyes is formed by coupling reaction of the color forming coupler and an oxidation product of the developing agent formed by the developing reaction. Then metallic silver formed by the development, hereinafter referred to as developed silver, and the non-reacted silver halide are each removed by a bleaching and fixing processes to obtain a dye image.
A color print can be obtained by giving optical exposure through the processed color negative film to a color photographic paper having the same combination of the sensitive wavelength region and the formed color on a reflective support.
The demand for simplifying the processing is increasingly made strong according to the following reasons even though such system has been widely utilized.
Firstly, a special knowledge and a skilful operation are required since the composition and the temperature of the processing baths for color development, bleaching and fixing should be exactly controlled.
Secondarily, substances such as a color developing agent and an iron chelate compound as the bleaching agent, the evacuation of which are regulated for environmental preservation, are contained in these processing solutions. Therefore, specific equipment is frequently necessary for installation of the processing apparatus.
Thirdly, a long time is necessary to these processes even though the time is shortened by the recent technological development. The shortening of the processing time is insufficient yet for the requirement for the rapid processing.
On such background, a requirement to constitute a system without the use of the color developing agent and the bleaching agent usually used in the present color image forming system is increasingly made strong for reducing the pollutant load and simplifying the processes.
Besides, a system has been known in which the image formed on the color negative film is optically read by a scanner and converted to electric signals. The electric signals are subjected to an image processing to prepare digital image data, and the image information is transferred to an image recording medium using in the form of the digital image data. In this case, a print so called as a digital print can be obtained by scanning a light-sensitive material such as a color photographic paper. Moreover, the print can be by the non-silver salt printer such as an ink-jet printer, a sublimation printer or an electrophotographic printer.
Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection, hereinafter referred to as JP O.P.I. Publication, No. 9-146247 discloses a method by which an image formed on a film in which silver halide and developed silver are remained is read by the scanner to convert to electric signals. However, in this publication, a usual scanner available in the market is used for converting the image and detailed condition for reading the image, and any detailed condition for reading the image is not described. The quality of the image obtained by such method is quite insufficient for providing to a customer since the image quality is inferior to that of the image obtained by the negative through the usual desilverizing treatment even though the image can be read out by this method.
An object of the present invention is to provide an image forming method using a silver halide photographic light-sensitive material and an apparatus by which an image having almost the same quality as an image obtained by the usual or conventional method can be obtained even though the method is simplified.
The object of the invention can be attained by the following embodiments:
1. An image information recording method, comprising the steps of:
(a) imagewise exposing to light a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprising a support having thereon a light-sensitive layer containing a silver halide and a color coupler;
(b) subjecting the photographic light-sensitive material to color development so as to obtain an image in the photographic light-sensitive material;
(c) converting the image in the photographic light-sensitive material to electric image information using a scanner comprising a light source part and a light receiving part while at least 80% of the developed silver and the silver halide remains in the photographic light-sensitive material; and
(d) recording the electric information on a recording medium,
wherein, the step (c) is carried out with the scanner that exhibits a light diffusion coefficient of at least 0.8.
2. The image information recording method of item 1,
wherein the step (c) is carried out with the scanner by adjusting an illuminance at the light receiving part to be in a range of 80,000 to 1,500,000 lux.
3. The image information recording method of item 1,
wherein the light receiving part comprises a two-dimensional CCD.
4. The image information recording method of item 1,
wherein the light-sensitive layer comprises a blue sensitive layer, a green sensitive layer and a red sensitive layer, and the light source part of the scanner for reading image information of the blue sensitive layer remits light having a spectrum exhibiting a wavelength of a center of gravity in the spectrum being longer than 460 nm, wherein the center of gravity in the spectrum, which is obtained plotting light intensity at the ordinate of the coordinate in terms of antilogarithm and wavelength at the abscissa of the coordinate in terms of antilogarithm, is a wavelength such that when the spectrum is divided into two, a longer wavelength part and a shorter wavelength part by a line through the wavelength parallel to the ordinate, the area in the shorter wavelength part and the area at the longer wavelength part are the same.
5. The image information recording method of item 4,
wherein the overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the blue sensitive layer and the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye of the blue sensitive layer is at least 50% of the total area of the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye.
6. The image information recording method of item 4,
wherein the overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the green sensitive layer and the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye of the green sensitive layer is at least 80% of the total area of the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye.
7. The image information recording method of item 4,
wherein the overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the red sensitive layer and the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye of the red sensitive layer is at least 80% of the total area of the absorption spectrum of the image forming dye.
8. An image information recording apparatus, comprising:
(a) an exposure device for imagewise exposing to light a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprising a support having thereon a light-sensitive layer containing a silver halide and a color coupler;
(b) a color development processing device for color developing the photographic light-sensitive material so as to obtain an image in the photographic light-sensitive material;
(c) a scanner comprising a light source part and a light receiving part for converting the image in the photographic light-sensitive material to electric image information while at least 80% of the developed silver and the silver halide remains in the photographic light-sensitive material; and
(d) a recording devise for recording the electric information on a recording medium,
wherein, the step (c) is carried out with the scanner that exhibits a light diffusion coefficient of at least 0.9, and the step (c) is carried out with the scanner by adjusting an illuminance at the light receiving part to be in a range of 80,000 to 1,500,000 lux.
9. An image information recording apparatus, comprising:
(a) an exposure device for imagewise exposing to light a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprising a support having thereon a light-sensitive layer containing a silver halide and a color coupler;
(b) a color development processing device for color developing the photographic light-sensitive material so as to obtain an image in the photographic light-sensitive material;
(c) a scanner comprising a light source part and a light receiving part for converting the image in the photographic light-sensitive material to electric image information while at least 80% of the developed silver and the silver halide remains in the photographic light-sensitive material; and
(d) a recording devise for recording the electric information on a recording medium,
wherein the light-sensitive layer comprises a blue sensitive layer, a green sensitive layer and a red sensitive layer, and the light source part of the scanner for reading image information of the blue sensitive layer remits light having a spectrum exhibiting a wavelength of a center of gravity in the spectrum being longer than 460 nm, wherein the center of gravity in the spectrum, which is obtained plotting light intensity at the ordinate of the coordinate in terms of antilogarithm and wavelength at the abscissa of the coordinate in terms of antilogarithm, is a wavelength such that when the spectrum is divided into two, a longer wavelength part and a shorter wavelength part by a line through the wavelength parallel to the ordinate, the area in the shorter wavelength part and the area at the longer wavelength part are the same.
10. An image information recording apparatus of item 9,
wherein the blue sensitive layer has a spectral sensitivity diagram, and an overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the blue sensitive layer and the spectral sensitivity diagram of the blue sensitive layer is at least 50% of the total area of the spectral sensitivity diagram.
11. An image information recording apparatus of item 9, wherein the green sensitive layer has a spectral sensitivity diagram, and an overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the green sensitive layer and the spectral sensitivity diagram of the green sensitive layer is at least 80% of the total area of the spectral sensitivity diagram.
12. An image information recording apparatus of item 9,
wherein the red sensitive layer has a spectral sensitivity diagram, and an overlapped area of the spectrum of the light source part for reading image information of the red sensitive layer and the spectral sensitivity diagram is at least 80% of the total area of the spectral sensitivity diagram.